


sweet turning sour

by theviolonist



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have a car accident in 2020.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet turning sour

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [1D Olymfics](1d-olymfics.livejournal.com). The prompt was: _“The (500) Days of Summer attitude of “He wants you so bad” seems attractive to some women and men, especially younger ones, but I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is. He develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she’ll give his life meaning because he doesn’t care about much else going on in his life. A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person.” - Joseph Gordon-Levitt_

i.

They have a car accident in 2020.

 

ii. _instrumental_

The asphalt is still hot when they stumble towards each other, laughing hysterically. They fall into each other's arms, and Louis splays his palms on Harry's back, holding him close. He presses Harry against his chest and it's like holding wind, the way he's so frail, ready to slip through his fingers.

"You're alive," he says. His voice breaks as he cards frantic fingers through Harry's hair, checking for blood. "I love you," he says, kissing Harry messily, thumbs stroking his cheekbones. "I love you, I love you -"

They escape from the smoke and the sirens and catch a cab as soon as the paramedics let them out of their sight. The driver raises an eyebrow at their state but doesn't turn them away. The ride back to the apartment goes by in a daze. Louis is watching the road, holding Harry's clammy hand against the fake leather. Harry’s knuckles feel naked; Louis wonders why he never bought him a ring. He blinks at the road signs, trying to remember what the yellow triangle means. Maybe he has a concussion.

The road blurring under the car makes him think of the things they said they'd do some day and could have missed. There's climbing the Kilimanjaro and watching the clouds below, clinging to the rocks; resting their elbows on the railing of the Eiffel tower and sneaking glances at the city sprawling before them between kisses, a _parisienne_ in a fur coat lounging in a corner; backpacking through the Andes, soles stained with matted brown-red dust. Their dreams have no fear of heights; now there's no time to lose.

Their elbows knock as they kiss again, and Louis takes Harry's face in his hands, kisses his eyelashes, his cheekbones, his throat, trying to make red bloom again on his skin. 

"You're alive," he says, dusting his prayers on Harry's skin. He's building him an armor.

Louis doesn't check himself, lets the words melt on his tongue, mix as they drip on Harry's skin like wax. Harry doesn't say anything, his long body still shaking quietly, torn between relief and fear. Louis spreads Harry out on the bed and pulls him upright. Harry hangs in the dust-covered light, his hair lit up.

Harry is feather-light that day, the day they almost died. When he rides Louis and throws his head back, long neck bared, Louis closes his fingers around his hips. It's not a day that makes him want to mark, and yet Harry feels so air-thin in the embrace that Louis digs his fingers into the flesh just to check that he's really there.

The curtains flap at the windows, swelling like pregnant Scarlett O'Haras when the wind hits them from behind, playing hide and seek in their heavy folds. Louis listens as Harry's moans fill the room and wonders why he never realized how lucky they were.

"Never go," Louis says against Harry's lips. Harry doesn't answer. He doesn't mind his silence; it's his absence he couldn't bear.

Later, when they fall entangled on the pillows, the rain outside is like an Indian monsoon. They don't say anything. They don't need to.

 

iii.

It's Louis who decides to go on the road trip.

They're lying in bed one day, their ankles pressed together under the flimsy sheet (it's too hot to cuddle, heavy with the oncoming storm). Louis brushes a sweat-matted curl off Harry's forehead. He smiles lazily.

"We should take a road trip," he says, with the manic light his eyes always take when he has a crazy idea glowing feebly underneath the exhaustion.

Harry mumbles sleepily, "What?"

"We should go to America," Louis says.

"Why not," Harry says. He looks up at Louis, eyes full of unconditional trust.

"Why not," Louis repeats. He tries not to let it get caught up in his throat, to no avail.

 

iv.

America is hard sun and dust-covered roads, so different when they're alone. They rent a Corvette because they can; their sunglasses barely hide their laughing eyes as they drive through New York, cursing the hellish traffic. Everything looks bigger, brighter, the blinking ATMs and the traffic lights hanging above them.

Louis's head is full of plans – he wants them to bathe in the Tisch fountain, to shout from the Empire State Building, to sleep in dirty motels and make greasy, desperate love that seeps through the paper-thin walls. He wants Chinese take-out and he wants to _live_.

Harry is more subdued, for once. He wraps his fingers around Louis's wrists and pulls him into a restaurant, drags him to a corner table. The place is a little crummy, a single candle flickering inside a little glass jar. It smells like humidity and tomato sauce.

"One thing at a time," Harry says. "You don't want to starve before you get to experience all of America's wonders, do you?"

Louis nods, pecks his lips. Harry leans into it. Safety doesn't mean anything anymore – or rather, it does, but it doesn't mean the same thing: it's crucial and stitched close to their skins.

They laugh as they try and fail to eat their spaghetti Lady and the Tramp-style, a drip of tomato sauce falling on Louis's white shirt. Harry beckons him closer.

"I wish we were somewhere private so I could lick that off," he says, hoarse in Louis's ear, a smirk stretching the corners of his mouth.

Louis laughs, flushing with arousal rather than embarrassment. He gets up and pushes Harry towards the bathroom, not bothering to wait the requisite ten minutes before he follows him in. They trade quick blowjobs in one of the stalls. Harry, true to his promise, licks the stains around Louis's nipple, his tongue teasing it through the damp fabric, and Louis arches into it, swallowing his moans.

When they come back they're smiling like idiots in love, and they finish their spaghetti without even registering that it's gone cold. Harry shakes his curls out and tries to hide his smile but Louis takes his chin between two fingers to make him meet his eyes. They don’t need to hide anything from each other. 

They order a chocolate mousse and a sundae. It's not as good as what they're used to but they find it delicious anyway. They lick each other's spoons, trying to make it look as lewd as possible; at some point Harry recreates the scene from _When Harry Met Sally_ , almost making his chair tumble backwards. Louis laughs all the way through.

They have sex in the hotel like Louis wanted, Harry's head banging against the headboard. He lets out a loud string of curses and Louis kisses it better, fists his shirt to bring him close enough to kiss, knocking their teeth together. A bit of blood beads out of Harry's lip. He sighs. Louis goes to lick it, but -

"Let it bleed," Harry says, and splays his palms on Louis's back, under his ribs. His heartbeat echoes through both of them.

 

v.

Zayn calls one morning when Harry's in the shower. Louis thought about joining him, but he really has to figure out where they're going.

"Oi," he says distractedly into the phone, unfolding one of their maps on the bed.

"Louis," Zayn says. He sounds unexpectedly weary. "Where are you?"

"New York," Louis says. "You okay, mate?"

"You shouldn't be a-" Someone says something behind him, and he growls. "You should have warned us before taking off."

Louis tsks. "I told you. I said Harry and I wanted to go back to America. What d'you want, the itinerary?"

He's a little annoyed, to be honest. Usually Zayn is the least clingy of all the boys, lets them do their own stuff and is either happy for them and quietly disapproving. He'd expect this kind of questioning from Liam, but Zayn?

Zayn sighs in the receiver. Louis cringes, distances it from his ear. "Whatever, mate. You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Louis asks, and then remembers he left just after the accident. Harry and him were both pretty shaken up. "Yeah, we're alright, mate, don't worry."

Zayn makes a little noise, says something Louis doesn't hear to whoever's with him. "Right, okay, glad you're fine, then. Just. Keep us posted, okay? You know Liam, proper mother hen."

Louis isn't fooled, but he finds himself nodding into the receiver. He can't really begrudge his best friends some worry about them now, can he? He hums. "Sure. Say hi to the boys for me, yeah?"

"Will do."

Louis hangs up, trying not to let the strangeness of Zayn's behavior creep under his sleep-loose skin. He turns back to the map, but for a second everything looks impenetrable. He's hungry, anyway, and they have a kitchenette, he should make them something to eat. Maybe an omelette?

They haven't bought anything, so Louis decides to go down to the supermarket to get a few things. He finds a 7/11 easily enough, throngs of harassed-looking people walking under the bright neons. Louis reels a little – he’s never liked supermarkets – but he needn’t stay for long.

He's trying to choose between the regular eggs and the organic ones when a little hand tugs at his sleeve. He jumps. When he turns around, he finds a little girl looking up at him with big amber eyes. A young woman is standing behind her, looking mortified – probably her older sister.

He's a little surprised – he's more or less disguised (a beanie and sunglasses); besides, they're not as famous as they used to be, and definitely not with the same demographic.

"I'm sorry," the older sister says. "She's – she's a big fan of yours."

Louis smiles. "No worries," he says, pasting his fan-smile on. He crouches down to the little girl, who's staring at him, unblinking. "What's your name?" he asks.

She narrows her eyes at him and turns back to her sister, who takes her hand protectively. "She can't talk."

"Oh," Louis says softly.

The little girl signs something to her sister. "She's very sorry for you," the sister says, looking anywhere but at Louis. "She hopes you don't cry."

Louis makes a face. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says, genuinely confused.

"She says she knows how it feels losing something you care very much about," the young woman continues, and this time the little girl is looking straight at him, unwavering.

She looks back at her sister questioningly, and the sister nods hesitantly. The little girl opens her arms at Louis, and when he beckons her close she plasters herself to his chest, her little arms embracing him tightly. She signs behind his back, her mouth letting out little distorted sounds.

"She says she hopes you get better," the girl says.

When the little girl finally lets him go they exchange goodbyes. “Thank you,” he says, and the little girl beams at him, her fingers laced in her sister's.

Louis walks out the store with his organic eggs, butter, bread and goat cheese. He feels the tiniest bit hollow, for some reason.

 

vi.

Apparently channeling Liam, Louis makes a list. It's sloppy and called 'things' because he wanted to write 'things we have to do' but got distracted halfway through and started listing them, but he's pretty proud of it anyway, because hey, it's not every day you're going to see Louis Tomlinson display any sign of organization. It's a definite step forward.

Harry checks what he's written ("Go to a swanky museum for Haz, eat pizza, not go to Times Square, Empire State, get drunk legally, fuck in Central Park, meet Barack Obama") and laughs.

"Obama doesn't even _live_ here, you twat," Harry says, crossing the bed to kiss Louis.

Louis melts into the kiss, scrapes Harry's bottom lip lightly with his teeth. "But I wanted to take a picture to piss off Nialler,” he pouts.

Harry doesn't pay him any attention, busy adding obscene entries to the list.

Louis elbows him to make him stop writing. "Get off, wanker – wait, is that – for real?"

Harry bites his lip. "Yep."

"I thought you weren't into..."

Harry shrugs smoothly, his T-shirt sliding to reveal a strip of bare skin. Louis' eyes jump to it of their own accord.

"Thought I couldn't die without trying, you know?" Harry says, but Louis is only half paying attention.

"We should -" he starts, gesturing vaguely in a way that could mean _go and do the actual things on this list_ as easily as _do it right now_.

"Yeah, we should," Harry agrees.

He hooks two fingers in Louis' collar to pulls him in. Louis crawls into his lap; when they laugh it's nearly seamless, the breathless, early-morning laughter of people who have nothing to fear.

 

vii.

They do leave the room eventually, when they get tired of room-service food and the bedroom starts smelling rank. Besides, they aren't in America for nothing.

Louis forgets about the list and loads all their stuff in the car on an impulse. By the time Harry wakes up from his impromptu nap they're halfway through New Jersey, the sun beating down hard on them.

Harry blinks. Louis smiles at him. "Mornin', sunshine," he croons.

"Where are we?"

"New Egypt, apparently," Louis says flippantly, pointing to a sign on the edge of the road, blurred by the speed.

Harry stretches, unfurling his long limbs to soak up the sunlight. "D'you know where we're going?" he asks. He knows better than to try to reason with Louis, especially when he's like that, drunk on oxygen and cranked up to eleven.

"Depends," Louis says, and turns to grin full-force at him, his teeth sharp and white.

"On what?" Harry asks. He finds a donut wrapped in paper on the console and bites into it, muttering a muffled thank you. Louis nods.

"On where you want to go," Louis says, and hands him a pair of sunglasses.

Harry has to kiss him for that; he doesn't wipe the sugar from his mouth, just curls his hand around the nape of Louis' neck and pulls him to the side, slotting their mouths together messily. It's dangerous and inadvisable, but if they're going to die, at least they'll both be able to say that that's how they wanted to go.

 

viii.

The days trickle on. It's the sort of trip where you can't really one day from another – it could have been a week or a month since they left, and Louis wouldn't care either way. He does feel a little guilty about the boys (their mobiles got stolen, along with Harry's laptop, in this really dingy motel in West Virginia – seriously, it felt like they were in Supernatural) but it's not like they can do anything except go back, and Louis doesn't want to.

They're sitting in the car with their feet propped on the console, eating burgers and greasy chips, when he asks the question.

"Do you think we should go back?" He tries to sound casual and probably misses by a mile.

"I don't know," Harry says, indecisive as always. Sometimes it really pisses Louis off, but not today. He's not really sure he could get pissed about anything today, actually. "Do you want to go back?"

His curls are even messier than usual. He fits in here, in America – he looks like he's part of one of those generations only America can breed, identical and complicated at the same time, graceless and raw, full of hope. The fear that Harry might not come back with him hits Louis like a certainty, something he knew but wouldn't recognize through the haze of contentment.

"No," he says. "But we have to -"

Harry laughs; his head rolls back and his neck opens for the sun to shine right on. Louis wants to lick the skin there until it's clean of everything, the dirt and the sweat and the salt. "We don't have to do anything, Lou. We're free."

"The boys -"

"They get it." His eyes are burning. Even if they don't, Louis thinks, even if they don't, they will – at some point death will brush them past too and they'll realize – they'll see –

"Yeah, maybe," he says.

They drive through Missouri next. Harry takes up driving because he says he's tired of always being in the passenger seat. He drives like James Bond on weed, all impetuous and lazy and liquid, taking wide turns and looking into the horizon through this Ray-Bans like he sees something there that Louis can’t.

"Feeling good there, Rambo?" Louis teases.

Harry wiggles his eyebrows at him and ducks to peck him on the lips. If that's not perfect life, it's fucking close to it. 

"This country is bizarre," Harry frowns twenty kilometers later, when the landscape has radically changed from acres of hay-colored fields to a bushy green forest. The only noticeable similarity is that there's no one on the road except them, but maybe that's because Harry took that turn three hours ago. Louis told him it looked shady.

"It really is," Louis agrees. The view changes as much in one state as it would if they travelled through Britain, which... sort of makes sense, if you think about it. Still. It's a heady feeling. Their togetherness feels strangely small, essential.

It's like they can do anything. They could climb out the car and become pirates, walk to the sea or build a ship out of carved oak trees; they could hunt deer and roast it on the campfire, kiss with grease dripping down their jaws; they could become hermits and build a treehouse, scrabbling branches to make a roof and using the car's machinery to throw together a makeshift stove.

That's what Louis means when he says he wants to live forever. He doesn't care about getting old if it means being here with Harry. It's not that he doesn't care about wrinkles – he never said he wasn't vain – but he can get over it. 

"Onwards, sailor," he beams, shoving a vague finger at the road in front of him.

Harry bows his head, tipping him an imaginary hat. "O captain, my captain," he intones.

They're so fucking happy, it makes Louis thank whatever deity is responsible for the car accident. Maybe a push was what they needed, after all.

 

ix.

The thing about Louis, see, is that he's good at it. He's good at telling stories. Sometimes people get bored, sometimes they think he's going to be spastic and annoying and they don't even let him start, but once he gets going he’s golden.

There's a reason for that. It's nothing complicated, nothing to do with his voice or his childhood or anything like that – it's because he _believes_. He believes in his stories so hard, he lives them so intimately, and that's the only way people become good storytellers.

It's not a bad thing, _per se_. It's always served Louis, as far as he can remember. It's made him relatively interesting in the schoolyard, reasonably good at chatting girls up, and later boys, and definitely successful at making Harry Styles fall in love with him.

He's good at telling stories to himself, too. When he was a kid he used to murmur them until he fell asleep, _I'm a pirate, I'm a giant, I'm a king_. He learned to say them without talking out loud after that, but it doesn't mean he stopped. The day when he auditioned for the X Factor: _I'm a singer._

And then, over the years: _I'm a friend. I'm a lover. I'm a star. I'm a king. I'm a role model. I'm a pirate. I'm a brother. I'm a son. I'm a viking. I'm an astronaut._

Some of those are true, others less, but he never failed at making himself believe they were true. You could call it a talent.

It comes to his mind when Harry's sprawled in the passenger seat, his head turned towards Louis, his eyes drifting over Louis's wrists from under his drooping eyelids.

"Tell me a story," he says.

"What story?" Louis asks. He doesn't say no. Not to demands like that; rarely to Harry.

"You can choose," Harry says, but then, as usual, contradicts himself: "Tell me how we met."

Louis has a hundred and one stories about how they met, all true to a certain extent. He stays silent for a moment, just enough time to pick one and dress it up with the necessary embellishments, and then:

"Okay," he says.

Harry nestles deeper in the leather of his seat, closes his eyes.

 

x.

"What would you have done?" Harry asks in Indiana, as the sky darkens. They're still driving, probably through the night, because they slept in late and fucked all morning. 

Harry's behind the wheel. He's gorgeous, as usual, his curls overflowing from under his beanie, his long fingers wrapped around the wheel. Louis feels like he's in a movie.

"What would I have done if...?" Louis prompts.

"If I'd died," Harry says quietly, his voice barely audible over the roar of the engine. "Do you think about it?"

The question takes Louis by surprise. "I – don’t know.” _I don't know if I could take it_ , but he doesn't want to say that because he doesn't want to be dramatic and he doesn't want Harry to tell him that he probably could.

Harry drums his fingers on the wheel. The nervous _tap-tap_ fills Louis' body like a second heartbeat. "It's just -" he starts, but he doesn't finish and his head lolls back, defeated.

"I know, Haz," Louis says softly.

"Can you imagine, though? Looking next to you, and you're alive, and – but then – how do you think it would feel? I know we think we couldn't deal, but what do you think – what would we do?" His lower lip is quivering.

"Pull over," Louis says, his jaw tight.

Harry turns towards him, surprised. "What?"

"Pull. Over," Louis repeats, low and gritty in his throat.

Harry does. They're in the middle of nowhere; there are a few cars around them, but mostly it's just them and dry grass. Louis takes Harry's face in his hands, thumbs pressing against the hinges of his jaw.

"We're alive," he says fiercely, and he presses a kiss to his mouth. It's not about finesse, it's not even about sex – it's about saying _I'm here, you twat, don't you forget that._ It's _I'm not going away_ , because Louis isn't. He's a big fan of making promises he can't keep.

Harry lets out a quiet sob before quieting down, heaving deep breaths, his forehead pressed against Louis' shoulder. "We're okay," he says in a small voice, his hands coming up to rub at the small of Louis's back, counting up the vertebrae.

"Yeah", Louis repeats, and he ignores the tingling in his hands that feels like a bad omen. "We're okay."

 

xi.

They keep going until San Francisco. The city feels a little like home, European at the very least. They feel shy at the beginning, driving up and down the steep hills and glancing curiously into the street, but it's a good city to go unhinged, so they do.

There's drinking and sun, again, cheap tequila and bar booths and people looking at them but even more people not looking because it's like that, here. They sleep in the car the first night and then rent a motel room. It's not very spacious: a bed, a desk and a dressing crammed into twenty square metres, but it's good enough. Louis wants it to last forever – except this time it burns so hard he's afraid it might consume him.

"We should go back," he says on the second morning, biting down on Harry’s shoulder. It tastes like sweat and salt and the shower he didn't take.

Harry stirs in his sleep, cracks an eye open. "Why?"

Louis has a thousand answers for that and a thousand counter-arguments, too. He could say _because I want to prove to myself that this is real_ or _because I miss my mother_ or _I need rain_. Instead he just shrugs. "It's time."

Harry chuckles, his voice hoarse with sleep. "Always so dramatic," he murmurs, and stretches, his muscles going taut on the mattress. "What about we book tickets for next week, then?"

"Tomorrow," Louis says before he can check himself. He doesn't know why – maybe he's afraid the magic will stop and he'll have nothing but faded memories to bring home. There's a strange sense of urgency buzzing behind his eyelids. He rubs his eyes.

Harry doesn’t protest. "Alright," he says. "Tomorrow."

Their last day in the city is a little bittersweet, but they make the most of it. Harry takes Louis to places his friends told him about, where they can be alone on the rickety roof of a tattoo parlour, the scent of ink and sweat drifting up to them by waves, looking out on the city.

"What are we going to do when we get back?" Harry asks, tracing gentle fingers over Louis' happy trail.

"Go to my mum’s and eat," he says, stretching his neck to grin at Harry. "See the lads."

Harry groans. "They're going to be pissed we didn't send them postcards.”

"Whatever," Louis says. He can't care about much when he's like that, Harry bare-chested and drowsy besides him, oozing warmth.

They have to wake up at dawn to catch the plane. They're still kind of used to it, what with it being part of their job and something they did every other day, but it doesn't make it easier. Harry grumbles all the way to the shower, only stopping when Louis comes in to wash his hair, rubbing his hands against his scalp.

Harry turns around and grins at him, thumbing at his hips.

Louis pulls back. "We don't have time.”

Harry pouts at him, leaning in to nip at the edge of his jaw. "Puh-lease," he says, pursing his lips. He gives a vicious lick to the sinews on Louis' neck, where he knows Louis particularly likes it.

Louis sighs, slanting their mouths together in a lazy kiss. The water dribbles between them, across their noses and cheeks – Harry catches a drop that's hanging on one of Louis' eyelashes with his pinky, raising it to his mouth and licking it off playfully.

"Damn you, Styles," Louis says. He drops unceremoniously to his knees, wincing when he lands on a groove on the shower floor.

Harry frowns, reaches a hand down. "Sorry," he says, "I thought you -"

Louis laughs. "Don't worry, I'm fine. Yeah?" He bites the flesh of his thigh and Harry hisses, petting the hair at the back of Louis’ head.

Harry relaxes against the tiled wall, tipping his head back. Louis looks up at him from beneath his sodden lashes. Water is running down Harry’s closed eyelids to his mouth, the dip of his collarbones, his stomach - Louis gives himself a few more seconds to admire him. Then he gets to work.

They miss their flight.

 

xii.

They get another one, after much nagging from Louis. Harry mostly just shrugs through it, arguing that a day won't make a difference and that they can even get a refund, really, Lou, there's nothing to get so upset about. Louis gets tired of it after a few hours, anyway, so he makes Harry apologise so he won’t feel like he's giving in (Harry indulges him, tilting his head like he's doing him a favour) and they go to the market.

The walk down Allemany Boulevard hand in hand. The big churches gleam white and bellowing in the horizon, and the vegetables seem to ripen before them, passing from hand to hand and from stand to basket. Harry is beaming.

He buys them a few vegetables with names that sound like particularly difficult German surnames. Louis has tasted his cooking enough to know that he can trust him to make something edible with them, even though for now they mostly look like a very colourful bouquet but certainly not something Louis would eat (is that squash? Louis hates squash. Harry knows Louis hates squash. He better not make him squash purée or, like, squash _crème brulée._ That will _not_ go well for him.)

When they come back to the hotel Harry stops the elevator mid-climb and presses Louis against the mirrored wall to kiss the breath out of him.

"What was that for?" Louis asks after, rumpled and kiss-swollen. "Not that I'm complaining."

Harry shrugs, trying and failing to hide a smile in his shoulder in the awkward way he's had since they met, folding in on himself, his eyes crinkling with fondness. "Nothing," he says. 

Louis figures that deserves a snog, but then they're in the room where there's a bed and really, it would be a crime not to use it.

The squash can wait.

 

xiii.

They leave San Francisco the same day. Harry took care to book an evening flight, because you don't want to piss off Louis Tomlinson more than you have to. It's an overnight flight and they're both used to sleeping on planes, so it doesn't bother them much.

It's still ten hours plus of flight, though. Louis complains about it on the way to the airport, but the way he's leaning against Harry's arm and beaming up at him when he thinks Harry isn’t looking gives him away.

Harry gives him his blanket when he gets cold in the plane and they complain about the bad food together. The lady behind them gives them a nasty look, but it's not like they haven't millions of fans to keep them from poor self-esteem. They laugh it off.

Seeing as he can never get any rest on planes, he's not going to frown on sleep when he finally manages to reach it. Besides, he is a little sad about leaving the US and this illusion of a perfect life and he doesn't want to let it show more than necessary. He's the one who insisted they come back to the UK, after all.

He checks that no one's looking before he tugs on Harry's sleeve and leans in to kiss him, just a little kiss on the corner of his mouth, sucking the edge of his lower lip in for a fraction of second. He smells like plane food and the cigarette he smoked just before they took off. (Louis is trying to make him quit. You would think having a near-death experience would make you stop smoking, but apparently Harry's love for nicotine is stronger.)

"I'm going to sleep," he says, stroking a thumb over the thin skin at Harry's wrist, under the fabric of his jumper.

"Okay. I have a book," Harry says, vaguely gesturing at his bag under his seat. "Good night."

Louis smiles and closes his eyes.

He wakes up just before they land. Everything is bumpy and horrible and for a moment Louis thinks something’s wrong (the flash of the other car's headlights in front of him, blinding him, the distant wail of sirens) but then there's Harry's hand on his arm, steadying him.

"Relax," he says, his voice slow and reassuring. "We're just landing."

Louis melts in his hold, muscles going liquid. "We're already there?" he asks through a yawn. "How long did I sleep?"

Harry shrugs. "Seven hours or so. You needed it badly, apparently."

"Well, if you hadn't made it your goal to perform as many deviant acts on me as you could, Styles," Louis says. He isn't sure he said it low enough that the lady behind them didn't hear him.

"No regrets," Harry says, reclining in his seat.

There's no one waiting for them at the airport when they get there, but they weren't expecting anyone anyway. Besides, it means there aren't throngs of fans upsetting airport security and stretching their journey for a few more hours.

They manage not to attract attention until they get to the flat. The taxi driver helps them get their luggage out of the boot and there they are, standing on the pavement, holding hands. It's like the end of a long dream, like someone pulling the covers off all of a sudden.

Harry takes a deep breath. "Well, here we are."

Louis smiles at him, squeezes his hand. "It's not that bad," he says, because it really isn't. Just because they're not in America doesn’t mean they can't be happy. "It's not even raining."

He wraps a hand around Harry's waist and pulls him close.

 

xiv. _staccato_

There's a knock at the door.

It's a Monday morning. Louis doesn't know why he feels safer inside, why he's been putting off calling the boys or even going out for groceries, but Harry hasn't said anything. It couldn't last forever, though – and Louis really was starting to miss them. He kind of wants to sprawl on the stupid hipster couch Nick convinced Harry to buy and watch _Toy Story_ and tell the boys about their trip. He misses hearing them groan in fake disgust when he veers into private territory; he misses their Liam's idiotic jokes and Niall's swearing. He just misses them, really.

He doesn't ignore the knocking. In retrospect, maybe he should've.

Instead, he gets up from the couch and opens the door. They crush him into a hug. 

"Fuck," Zayn says, and maybe that's when Louis should have noticed there was something wrong, because Zayn never looks so raw. The only time Louis saw him cry was when his grandma died, and Louis may have a reasonably sized ego, but he doesn't think his coming back from holiday has quite the same emotional impact. "We were worried, you twat."

Louis doesn't panic. The tingling in his hands gets stronger, but it's probably just a cramp. He hides them in his pocket. "Why?" he asks.

He forces himself not to notice Liam's eyes, the way they're rimmed red and he looks harried, like he hasn't slept for days. Niall's hold on Liam’s hand, anchoring him like he always does when something doesn't go as planned.

Zayn is looking at him. It takes Louis a few seconds to put a name to the expression on his face, but once he does the reaction is automatic – shame and anger swelling like an old wound in his chest, between his heart and his ribs: pity.

"What's going on?" he asks.

He doesn't panic. Why would he panic? Nothing's wrong. There can’t be anything else here except happiness, because they fucking _survived_ , and that should mean more than anything. But in his head Louis is making a list of all the other things that could go wrong (his family, Harry's, the label, the boys) and it goes on forever: one of them is ill. His mum fell in the stairs. The label dropped them. 

Zayn rubs his eyes. His wrists seems thinner than usual, but panic always blinds Louis, makes him see things that aren't there.

Liam asks before Zayn can, laying a hand on his hip, probably to reassure him. That's how they communicate amongst themselves, through gestures and gentle touches. _I'm okay. I've got this._

"Where were you?"

 

xv.

Louis isn't panicking. His hands aren't sweaty when he rubs them on his trousers, the metallic zip of his pockets chafing against his palms.

"What are you saying? You know where I was. I told you. We went to America."

Liam glances at Zayn. Louis would like to say he wants to be in on the joke, but it seems so unfathomable and immensely sad – "You were in America."

"Sorry we didn't call, we, uh, our phones got stolen in this, it was, a – an inn, and then -"

His brain feels like it's filling with fog; he doesn't know why. So he clings to what he knows: he knows Harry, Harry was there, he remembers the taste of his skin and his folded knees in the seat next to him, his Ray-Bans, why -

There's a hand on his arm, suddenly. He startles. It's Niall. "Calm down, Lou. We've got you."

"What's going on?" Louis hisses. He reaches behind him; Harry will be there. He isn't.

There's this funny thing about suffocating: you can feel air all around you, it brushes your cheeks, makes you shiver, and for some reason you just can't get any in your lungs. You're there, trying to grasp something, opening your mouth like a fish, desperate, your brain going into alert mode and there's all this air around you that you can't breathe. It's like dying from dehydration in an ocean.

But this is okay. Everything is fine.

He crumples on the couch, throat closing up more and more. Tears are welling in his eyes. He almost expects it when Zayn says it (of course it was going to be him. It's not like any of the others could -).

"Harry's dead, Lou."

 

xvi.

Fade to black. When the curtain goes up here he is again, crying. Louis Tomlinson feels like a flood.

Zayn opens his mouth. "He's -"

"Shut up," Louis says. They spent a month together in a car in America, Harry isn't dead. He can't be dead. Louis made love to him an hour ago. "Harry isn't dead. That makes no sense."

He shouldn't be crying, he notices idly, from the outside. He shouldn't be crying because Harry is alive, there's no doubt about that. But he can't stop it. Let them believe what they want. They're wrong.

"Lou," Liam says, crouching in front him. Louis scoots back instinctively, his eyes shining like reflected headlights, caught at crossroads.

"Shut up. You're just messing with my head. Shut up."

_We're not saying anything,_ he hears on Zayn's face, but this is a lie too, they're just trying to make him believe – to make him believe –

"He's sleeping. He's in the bedroom. Don't try to -"

He would go check himself, but his legs are made of lead, he's heavy and poised. He'll stand up in a minute. Go get Harry.

That's when Zayn decides to get angry, of course. He's the one who could never hold it together anyway. Even at bootcamp, there he was, panicking because he couldn't dance. Louis hates him. 

"We _saw_ him," he says, but Louis isn't listening, he isn't. "We fucking _saw him_ in a coffin, and what were you doing? You were – gallivanting in America, living your little dream, fuck, this is _real life_ , Louis, you can't just -"

"Zayn," Liam hisses, grabbing his arm. "Do you really think that's going to make it better?" Zayn's eyes are fixed somewhere beyond him, black.

Louis doesn't move. Hands on his knees. Control the nausea. Harry isn't dead.

"I think I would _know_ if Harry was dead," he spits, but it lacks conviction. For some reason he can't find it, it's hidden somewhere inside of him, near the place where he left that mute little girl and her -

Close your eyes. No. Don't close your eyes. Breathe. Harry isn't dead. Louis asked him for a blowjob two days ago, and he pulled the car over and sucked him off right there on the roadside, knees in the sand, his eyes burning green and treasure-gold. Louis jokingly called him 'baby', he -

"Don't you remember?" Liam, Liam again. Niall isn't talking, isn't saying anything, maybe holding Zayn back, whispering other lies to him so he can calm down. "The accident. The firefighters got you out but they couldn't – Harry went through the bumper, don't you remember? Please remember, Lou. I'm so sorry, just please -"

He takes Louis's hand. Louis takes it back. "Get off," he says, his tongue cotton-like in his mouth. He tries to make the words bite, but instead he chokes on them pathetically.

His nails are digging into his thighs, but he can't stand up, not yet.

"Stop," he says, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets. "Stop lying to me. If this is a joke, it's not funny, I swear, it's not even -" He chokes on that one too. Not a joke. They might be dicks, but they wouldn't – "Did you check?" Voice breaks. "The room. Harry's there. He's got – we _survived_. Maybe they didn't see, maybe you didn't -" they did, they were there "but we survived, okay? We survived." _You can't take that away from me._

"Stop lying to yourself," Zayn says. He holds out a hand that Louis doesn't take.

They can't take his memories from him. He didn't imagine the San Francisco farmer's market. He would never buy squash by himself.

"Harry isn't dead," he says. He's sure. His voice doesn't shake. Harry isn't dead, he isn't. He clings onto it like a lifeline. He would never buy squash. He hates squash.

Suddenly he's free and he springs up, he can run away from here, this is all a lie and they're trying to trap him, these people aren't his friends. They can't be. Run for the car. He feels like he's in an action movie, there are sirens and bells in his head, he's running, slamming the doors, there are screams behind him, paparazzi but he cuts through the crowd, he was always stronger than they thought, Harry isn't dead -

The car is there like he parked it when they left, the stupidly shiny Porsche with sunlight beaming off the hood. The keys are in his pocket. There is still time – he can – 

He's getting into the car when he spots him. It's like a romantic film, the slow-motion moment around the tenth minute, except this one has screams and regular stumbling speed.

He's leaning against the apartment complex wall, smoking. Lips red. He's smiling a little, just a little, looking down, wearing the leather jacket he bought because Louis loved it on him. He spent too much on this jacket, or at least that's what Liam thought, but the two of them have always been careless about money. Haven’t grown out of their youth. 

"Harry", he breathes out.

He doesn't say anything about the insanity going on behind him. He doesn't want to scare him. They don't have the time.

"Get into the car," he says instead, pushing the heel of his hand against the small of Harry's back. Harry goes on willingly, liquid and unsurprised.

Driving through the crowd of paparazzi (Liam is on the pavement too, on the phone, his forehead barred with wrinkles) without running anyone over isn’t easy but Louis eventually manages, ignoring the shouts and the insults. He's used to it. He doesn't care. His blood is buzzing, pooling in his throat. 

He drives twenty kilometres before he dares to look back. They're just outside the city and there's no one behind them. His phone would probably be ringing like mad if he had it with him. Maybe he should thank that thief. Otherwise they would've tried to convince him – but it's okay now. Harry isn't dead, he's sitting next to him, his hair pulled back by the wind, leaning back into his seat.

Louis turns to him to explain. He doesn't really want to but Harry deserves it. He’ll probably ask at some point. When he meets Harry's eyes, though, he doesn't find any question in there, just the tranquil, limpid certainty. _I trust you._

"Do you want me to drive?" Harry asks, tilting his head. A curl of smoke crawls up to lick his cheekbone.

 

xvii.

They kiss. It's a quick kiss that feels hollow like the wind hissing through the windows from one side to another, mussing their hair. Their lips touch, cold. They draw back. It's not sex, it's just reassurance. 

Louis sags back into the driver's seat, boneless. His fingers uncurl around the wheel. "Yeah," he says. He wipes a hand on his forehead. "Fuck."

Harry smiles at him. "Pull over," he says, and throws his cigarette out the window. The smell reaches him once more, then clean air. He pulls over.

They switch seats silently. Louis slumps into his, reaching out to brush his fingers over Harry's hip, his wrist. "Thanks," he says.

Harry rests a hand on the seat and bends to kiss Louis’ cheek. Louis hms. "You're welcome."

Louis doesn't know how long they drive before the tiredness falls on him. It's sudden and somehow unexpected – he sags under it like a rag doll. "God," he oofs, drawing his knees to his chest.

Harry turns to look at him, worry written in the minuscule wrinkles around his eyes. "You should sleep," he says.

"Yeah," Louis says. He should. He can't keep his eyes open, anyway.

"I'll watch over you," Harry says, remote. "You're fine." The black behind Louis's eyelids is soothing. Cool.

"I love you," he hears himself say back.

Harry's reply isn't the last thing he hears before the car crashes into the wall. It's the little girl's breathing, her sister's voice. _She says she's sorry. She hopes you won't cry._

At least she has her wish, Louis thinks from behind the curtain of drowsiness. He isn't crying.


End file.
